Vampire Tap is me, Mike Hunsberger. I play all the instruments and stuff.
Early to mid 80's:
I got my first bass and amp for my high school graduation
(with all the money I received plus some of my own). This was the first instrument
I ever really played except some drums I had messed with. The bass was a JetGlo
Rickenbacker 4001 and the bass amp was a Randall RB-120 with a 15\" Speaker. That
bass was the coolest bass ever and if it wouldn't have been such a great instrument
I probably would not have kept playing. At that time I was working with Kevin Gayton.
His brother David played guitar and they new another guy Brad Skaife who played
drums. We formed a band but I couldn't even play my bass yet. We played some fun
covers of Ramones, Eddie Cochran and other early punk. We came up with a few short
lived band names and finally kept Imminent Attack. After a while it was obvious
I didn't have the guts to play in front of anything more than a small group of people
and still couldn't play that good so Jim Kading from The Bloody Mattress' took over
on bass. I kept practicing on my own and then decided to get my first guitar. It
was a really goofy used Fender Duo-Sonic. It took me quite some time to figure out
how to play barre chords. After that I started jamming with the band again on second
guitar. I was usually drowned out by the rest of the band but I was learning. After
a while I got a bit better and started doing shows with the band all the time. I
then purchased a Hamer Prototype guitar. I had many guitars during those years including
a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, Strings and Things Bluesbreaker?, Headless Steinberger
clone, etc. Also during that time I bought a Musicman Sabre bass, a fretless Ventura
bass, a cheap ass SG short scale copy bass(that has been in many hands), Amps included
a 20TH anniversary Marshall 2x12 combo, Music Man Head and Ampeg Convertible Bass
Amp. More to come...
Late 80's:
- Band with Jordan, George, Dave Dorst and Kevin Gayton. Once again we had some cool
songs and potential but not enough money or enthusiasm to keep it going. Can't remember
if we really had a name.
- Mors Oculus with Jordan Trais and Dave Dorst. Played only a few shows but could
have been good if we would have been serious. Memorable was our theme from Halloween.
It kicked ass with Dave's double kickin style.
90's:
- Cybrid Project - with Tom Muschitz. This was our first real music project based
on drum machines, samplers and influenced heavily by Skinny Puppy.
- alien faktor - This was Tom's project and he asked me to play guitar. We actually
did a few live shows released CD's and played twice in NYC.
- Vampire Tap is born...
Present:
I am hoping to restart a project that I wanted to do for a long time. Dracuul: An
Acid/Punk Jazz vibe. Who knows? It could happen.